A divided Conservative party will hand the keys to Downing Street to Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.

Observing the Labour party conference, it is clear that Corbyns’s cult now have complete control. If the Conservative party does not find a way to pull together it faces defeat at the next election.

The key moment of the conference for me was the passing of the McDonnell amendment. This was a change to the Labour party rules, which means that in future, leadership candidates will need the nomination of five percent of Labour MP’s rather than fifteen. Effectively removing the ability of Labour MP’s to vet candidates before putting them forward to the membership. Handing complete control of the party to Labour members, which in practice means to Momentum.

I wrote after the last election that although Corbyn had not defeated the conservatives he had defeated the Labour “moderates”. With the passing of this significant amendment the last vestiges of resistance have been destroyed. The takeover by the left is complete. The party of Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Smith and Neil Kinnock is dead. In its place is a hard left, incompetent, Marxist party determined to rob us of our freedoms and convict us of thought crimes.

We are seeing in front of our very eyes the creation of a leadership cult epitomised by that extremely annoying song. The call for collective ownership of the banks, the utilities, the railways and god knows what else. The control of prices, starting with rent controls. Does this not remind us of Eastern Europe in the latter half of the last century?

Understanding the damage this kind of government would do to our country, conservatives must unite in the national interest. Whether you are socially conservative or socially liberal what conservatives have in common is a belief the free market, in liberty, suspicion of an overarching state and an understanding of the importance of free speech and free thought. We must make this argument over and over again, across social media, with our colleagues at work, with our friends in the pub, within our families, at church, at the mosque, in our synagogues, at the gym and indeed on the doorstep while canvassing.

The Conservatives are all that stand now between Jeremy Corbyn and Downing Street. There is a huge responsibility on our shoulders and we must not lose sight of this in the years running up the next election.